TORONTO –  Amanda Hadwen of Ottawa earned her second straight shutout and junior Marika Labrecque of Lac Etchemin, Que., bagged the game-winning goal along with an assist, propelling McGill to a 4-0 shutout over Queen's in the opening round of the Old Four women's hockey tournament at Varsity Arena, Friday

It was McGill's sixth straight win over Queen's since a 3-2 overtime loss on Sept. 20, 2014 and improved their record to 18-6-1 against the Gaels since the national women's hockey championship was established in 1997.

In a rematch of last year's tourney final, four different Martlets provided the offence. McGill, which outshot the Gaels 43-14 -- including a 24-4 blitzkrieg in the final stanza -- only led 1-0 after two periods but exploded for three goals in the third period.

Hadwen, a 20-year-old neurology junior, needed only 14 saves to register her second straight and third career shutout. The 5-foot-7 netminder improved to 2-0 on the season and has now stopped all 32 shots faced over two games thus far. She will take a shutout streak of 120 minutes into her next contest.

Labrecque opened the scoring at 3:28 of the first period. The score stood that way until the final frame, when Stéphanie Desjardins, a junior from Grand Falls, N.B., converted on the power-play at 2:09. That was followed by senior Jane Downie-Landry of St. Jean, Que., at 17:35 and Anna MacCara, a freshman from Yellowknife, N.W.T., who notched her first career marker with only 48 seconds remaining in the contest. 
 
Queen's goaltender Makenzy Arsenault made 39 saves in a losing cause.
 
"In the second we weren't good at all," said head coach Peter Smith. "We got away from the game plan a little bit. We talked about it in the intermission. Everybody agreed we needed to get back to details and keep the game simple. I thought we played a really strong third. Overall, it was a good learning experience for our group to have a bad period but be able to recover from it."

The tourney now shifts venues from U of T to the campus of Western University in London, Ont.

McGill, which improved their preseason record to an unblemished 3-0,  will try to capture their second consecutive Old Four title, when they face Toronto (2-0) in a matchup of undefeated teams at Thompson Arena on Saturday at 2 p.m. The Varsity Blues advanced after blanking Western 3-0 in the other game.

Queen's, which dropped to 0-1 in the preseason, was playing for the first time since a 2-1 overtime loss to Ryerson in OUA quarter-finals last February. The Gaels will confront Western (0-1) in the consolation game at 5 p.m.
 
FACES IN THE CROWD: A number of Martlet hockey grads were spotted in the crowd to watch their alma mater blank Queen's, including Jasmine Sheehan, Brittany Smrke, Peggy Donahue, Suzie Fujiki, Andrea Weckman and Robin Spratt.

SCORING SUMMARY